Tuesday, Jan 18, 2022 • 48min

Be Best (Wayne Best)

Anatomy of Murder

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Shots fired in the dead of night…a house set ablaze…a young man almost run over…and wild rumors swirling in the community. It’s the type of case that keeps investigators (and you) guessing every step of the way.

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Talking about

Speakers

(5)

Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

Scott Weinberger

Eric Clifford

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Transcript

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Karen Kirsch

00:02

I was asleep and Johnny was in his room and he came upstairs screaming saying, Wayne's been shot.

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Wayne Best Sr.

00:11

That was the worst phone call I've ever received.

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Eric Clifford

00:14

We had nothing.

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Wayne Best Sr.

00:17

You're thinking, are they gonna catch them? Are they gonna get them?

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Eric Clifford

00:20

I recall thinking to myself, wow, this is going to be a hard one to solve.

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Scott Weinberger

00:36

I'm Scott Weinberger, Investigative Journalist and former Deputy Sheriff.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

00:41

I'm Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, former New York City

Homicide

prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

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Scott Weinberger

00:48

And this is "Anatomy Of Murder."

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

00:53

So, often when you hear a case called "Who done it?" Well, maybe it kind of is, but you still have a sense of what happened or who in the end. But today's case is truly a "Who done it?" And just when you think, you know, which way it's going to head all of a sudden, something surprising happens and it's going to make you second guess everything you've been thinking before.

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Scott Weinberger

01:16

We want to begin today's story with two people who met in

Schenectady

New York

first is Wayne Best Sr.

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Wayne Best Sr.

01:24

My first apartment when I moved to

Schenectady

was right above this diner.

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Scott Weinberger

01:31

And a waitress named Karen Kirsch.

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Karen Kirsch

01:34

I worked in a diner, and he would come in for coffee.

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Wayne Best Sr.

01:38

So, I would just go downstairs and grab my cup of coffee.

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Karen Kirsch

01:43

And he would bring the boys with him every day.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

01:46

Wayne Sr. had two kids. He had two little boys, Wayne Jr. and Johnny.

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Karen Kirsch

01:50

Wayne and Johnny were just so cute and just a big, big smile in his squinty eyes.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

01:57

And he had this routine every morning that he would go downstairs from where his apartment was, there was a little coffee shop, and he would get his morning coffee, he'd get it to go.

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Karen Kirsch

02:06

And he would never leave me a tip. So, one day I said to him, I'm like, "What is good with this? I serve you coffee every day and you never give me a tip."

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

02:16

Well, one day that coffee turned into conversation, and soon that conversation turned into them being a couple.

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Karen Kirsch

02:23

I mentioned that I wanted a haircut, and I couldn't get my hairdresser to give me a haircut, and he said. I'll cut your hair for you.

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Wayne Best Sr.

02:30

I was a licensed barber at the time. So, I cut her hair.

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Karen Kirsch

02:34

I mean it just snowballed from there.

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Scott Weinberger

02:37

Some people fall in love at first sight, others warm up to each other over time, and that's exactly what happened with Karen and Wayne Sr. But it's the relationship that Karen formed with Wayne Sr. two sons that made it really a perfect fit.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

02:52

She really almost fell in love with them before she fell in love with their dad.

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Karen Kirsch

02:57

Well it was right at the beginning of winter. So, they had their big puffy coats on, and they had their little hats on, and just all you could see was these fat little faces looking at you. And they were just adorable, and they didn't have their mother in their life.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

03:14

Now just to get our facts straight here about this family. Both of these boys were the biological children of Wayne Sr., but Karen had known them since they were two, and three and she really was a mother to them in every sense of the word and loved both those boys loved them as her own.

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Wayne Best Sr.

03:32

Shortly thereafter we moved in together, you know, the rest is history.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

03:38

And just the way this whole now blended family meshed and met, kind of talks to a sweetness, if you will in the resulting history.

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Scott Weinberger

03:48

While Wayne Jr.. and his brother, Johnny were very close growing up, they could not be more different. While Johnny was the quiet type, Wayne Jr. was more outgoing, and he knew just about everyone.

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Wayne Best Sr.

03:60

As a kid, and I'm talking three years old, just when Wayne would walk into the room, like with his arms, you know, like he's he's showing his muscles, he was just a very well liked, well known. His presence was strong.

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Scott Weinberger

04:18

Wayne Jr.'s dad talked about what an influence Wayne had, not only on his family, but his friends and his community.

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Wayne Best Sr.

04:26

Just a great upstanding kid. He always looked out for his friends.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

04:30

We could fill this entire podcast with all the nice things that people had to say about Wayne Jr. One thing was hard to miss about Wayne Jr. and that is that he was an incredibly gifted athlete from everything from football to

Lacrosse

to his beloved BMX biking. He not only did it all, but he was great at it all too.

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Scott Weinberger

04:53

I grew up my whole life playing ice hockey and that was my sports something I still love even once in a while, I still get out there if I can get ice time after five o'clock in the morning. But

Lacrosse

is a very difficult sport to master, it is a fast paced contact sport like hockey, you really need great coordination to be sharp on your feet in order to really become proficient.

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Wayne Best Sr.

05:16

Wayne was the only Person from

Schenectady

in 2006 to make the New York State Empire State Games

Lacrosse

Team that is a huge accomplishment. He was the only person and they try out, I want to say there were a few 100 people trying out so they were excellent

Lacrosse

players.

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Scott Weinberger

05:38

Wayne Jr.'s biggest passion was BMX biking.

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Karen Kirsch

05:41

I would love for you guys to see some of the videos his friends made because you would really get to see him in his element.

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05:48

I mean right on the left side drive, right side page.

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Scott Weinberger

05:52

His family shared some videos with us of Wayne doing some tricks.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

05:57

This is a guy who just looks so comfortable in his own skin.

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06:01

I love BMX, all day every day.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

06:04

He is smiling and laughing.

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Scott Weinberger

06:07

And he did it, spending a lot of time perfecting some pretty dangerous tricks. Like jumping over concrete barriers or sliding down a railing on a set of stairs.

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06:19

Right in the gravel, alright?

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Karen Kirsch

06:22

He did like to do very crazy tricks. Like if he fell and burned and people were laughing at him, he didn't care, he would get back up and do it again.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

06:36

And another thing he is always surrounded by people.

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06:39

Oh, did you get all tiny pickle footed, a little bit. A little pickle footed? Look at my Tommy pickles.

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Karen Kirsch

06:46

He was an all around really good guy.

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Scott Weinberger

06:50

You could really tell how outgoing he was and how comfortable he was basically with everyone.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

06:56

But that was all going to change on December 9th of 2014.

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Karen Kirsch

07:02

Wayne was murdered when he was 25.

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Scott Weinberger

07:05

By then Karen and Wayne's dad had separated for several years. Both Johnny and Wayne lived at Karen's who still remembers the last time she saw Wayne Jr.

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Karen Kirsch

07:16

I went to work, and went to the dentist. And then my sister and I just went home and made a ton of Christmas cookies. Wayne came home with like five of his friends and they all just sat around in the kitchen having milk and cookies. I had that dental work done, and I asked him to go get me some yogurt because I couldn't eat and then that was it, it was over.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

07:38

So, is Karen lay sleeping, she knew that Wayne Jr. who was 25 years old at the time, had gone back out with friends and her younger son Johnny came running up the stairs hysterical.

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Karen Kirsch

07:50

He came upstairs screaming saying, "Wayne's been shot", it happened right in front of the apartment.

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Scott Weinberger

07:56

Karen ran out the front door, and she could see Wayne.

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Karen Kirsch

07:60

My sister was with me, and we went downstairs and the boy that Wayne was with was smart enough to keep us away from Wayne.

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Scott Weinberger

08:09

The friend that he was with tried to shield her from what he knew were serious wounds.

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Karen Kirsch

08:16

Johnny basically took off running I think to go figure out who was running down the road and I just stayed calling 911.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

08:26

Just thinking about this, her child, albeit a young grown man is outside laying on the ground not moving, and what that must have been like to her. You know, you have to think that any parent of course wants to get down and be there with their child to help them to save them if they can, but she couldn't even get close, and at that point they waited for police.

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Karen Kirsch

08:47

The police department arrived first, and they would not get out of their car until other police officers showed up. I guess for safety reasons there was a couple of police officers there, and then the ambulance showed up.

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Scott Weinberger

09:02

Now in my experience normally it's the other way around if E. M. S. or paramedics would arrive before police. In some cases they may choose to wait for police, especially in a call involving gunfire, but I cannot speak to what or why that would happen here.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

09:20

Agreed. You know, it struck me definitely is off when I heard it. You know, I would understand sometimes if it was one officer because there's a safety protocol of making sure they are too. But assuming that's the case, as Karen said, why they wouldn't get out to try to render some assistance? It's just a big question mark.

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Scott Weinberger

09:37

Another person who was soon notified about the

Shooting

on scene was Wayne's father.

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Wayne Best Sr.

09:43

I was at home and I got a call from an unrecognized number, and it's after one in the morning. But then the call came in three times, and it was my son Jonathan calling me from the person's phone that was with Wayne, and he says, "Daddy you gotta come quick, Wayne's been shot." That was the worst phone call I've ever received. So, immediately. I mean I was only ten blocks away so I was there within ten minutes and again, you know, just the worst night.

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Scott Weinberger

10:21

And I'm sure any of us could imagine what that ride, even for only ten blocks must have been like.

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Karen Kirsch

10:26

Johnny went with his father to the hospital and my sister and I went to the hospital separately.

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Scott Weinberger

10:32

They had separated Karen and Wayne in a separate wing off of the ER, so they could have some privacy while they wait for the diagnosis of where Wayne's injuries and how severe they were.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

10:44

But they have no idea what condition Wayne Jr. is actually in. Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he even conscious at that point? But then after a while a group of doctors come in.

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Karen Kirsch

10:56

There was a wall of police officers behind these two doctors and nurses.

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Wayne Best Sr.

11:02

We got the news that he didn't make it.

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Karen Kirsch

11:07

And we asked, "Can we please just see him?" And they said, "No." And I said, "I promise we won't touch him, can we please just see him?" And they were adamant that we could not see him.

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Scott Weinberger

11:20

Obviously, everyone deserves to be able to see a loved one when they want to see the loved one, especially in that moment.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

11:28

But at that point I've got to believe that it was because of the state of what he is. And again, doctors, police didn't want them to see what he looked like with those gunshot wounds and probably with whatever medical assistance they had tried to give, they just didn't want him to see it. And also at that point, Wayne's body and his condition was also at the time potentially evidence.

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Scott Weinberger

11:52

His body is a crime scene. The humane thing to do is give a family what they're asking for. But in the end, you want to preserve the most you can to bring that family justice.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

12:05

And I don't think what we're saying is to give any excuses for it because it is so hard to wrap your head around. It makes me uncomfortable even talking about it because one parent should ever be denied access to their child.

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Karen Kirsch

12:19

The night that it happened, Johnny was just kind of, he was hysterical, he was upset. He saw what happened to his brother.

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Scott Weinberger

12:28

But the tragedy wasn't over, it was just the beginning and now the family and investigators were left with the one burning question. "Who shot Wayne Jr.?"

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

12:38

And for Karen and the rest of the family those next days were an obvious blur. There are funeral arrangements just grieving from this loss that they just cannot even fathom that he's actually gone. But at the same time police are wasting no time from jumping into the investigation.

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Scott Weinberger

12:53

And as far as a crime scene, there really wasn't much to process because there was not much Forensic Evidence left at the scene.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

12:60

And just generally speaking of course they're taking the obvious steps where there are people out there that saw anything.

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Scott Weinberger

13:05

Heard anything.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

13:06

Interviewing people that may have been around looking for surveillance footage.

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Scott Weinberger

13:10

There was one person with Wayne Jr. who survived the attack.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

13:15

His name was Sean.

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Scott Weinberger

13:16

And police needed to talk to him to get any description or any information that could lead them to a potential suspect.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

13:23

And one of the difficulties about that was while he could tell them what happened, he couldn't give them much about who because of people that ran up on them were wearing masks.

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Karen Kirsch

13:33

A guy in a dark hood and a neoprene mask attacked him. He fought back.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

13:39

You know Scott, so often when police don't have much to go on in the beginning, they look for motive.

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Karen Kirsch

13:45

When we got down to the police department, they separated us, and we each got our own detective to talk to.

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Wayne Best Sr.

13:51

They asked us if we knew anything, if we knew who would want to hurt Wayne. And basically Wayne really didn't have any enemies.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

13:59

Just everything that we heard, and we saw, and learned about Wayne Jr. a guy like that who really doesn't have any. So popular so well liked it makes it all the more difficult to think of who might have wanted to harm him.

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Wayne Best Sr.

14:14

And then the evidence started gradually coming in here.

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Scott Weinberger

14:20

You had Wayne Jr.. whose pockets were turned out, and that leads to an investigative theory that this may have begun as a

Robbery

, but police already had a name to investigate. Someone Wayne's mother Karen, knew had a recent beef with her son.

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Karen Kirsch

14:35

All I could assume was I knew that there was one boy that Wayne had some issues with, and I didn't think it was anything that drastic but Wayne didn't have problems with anybody. So, I thought it had something to do with this kid.

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Scott Weinberger

15:01

Just a few months earlier, Wayne had come home after being maced and now that someone could be suspected in the

Murder

of Wayne Jr.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

15:10

So far, you've heard that Wayne Jr.. had a lot of friends was very well liked, and very few enemies according to family and friends. But it turns out that Wayne did have a problem with someone and they actually had a physical altercation just a few months before he was murdered.

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Karen Kirsch

15:27

So, I was just trying to help him wash the mace out of his eyes and he just kind of broke down and told me that this kid Devin had sprayed him with mace. I don't know that he told me the whole story.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

15:40

You know, when you think about everything you heard about Wayne Jr.. Scott, I don't even expect to hear that you to fight with anyone let alone with something that rose to the level of using mace. And so you kind of want to, I want to know "Why?"

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Scott Weinberger

15:53

A prior incident with someone involving being sprayed with mace is a very valuable lead.

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Karen Kirsch

15:59

And that's who I originally told police. I thought I had done it was this one individual.

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Scott Weinberger

16:04

Now, investigators have a lead they can look into and at least there was supposed to look into.

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Karen Kirsch

16:10

I contacted the detective that I was dealing with in the very beginning so often that he told me I couldn't call him anymore.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

16:19

But it wasn't even so much that they didn't have the answer. It was what she was getting back in response.

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Scott Weinberger

16:25

In fact, in my book, he broke the golden rule which is telling the victim's family. I'm too busy or please stop calling me.

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Karen Kirsch

16:33

He would say things to me like I'm going on vacation and my wife will be mad if you call me or there was a big fire in

Schenectady

and he would say, well we had to put Wayne's case on the back burner because now we have a new shiny fire that we're dealing with. Like you don't say that to the mother.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

16:53

I closed my eyes when she says it because there really is so much to bedside manner.

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Karen Kirsch

16:58

You don't say somebody else's case is more important than hers.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

17:03

There had been a fire in

Schenectady

. It was a big fire. It took more than one life. And so of course, again it's going to be an "all hands on deck" case, and yeah, yes, it's understandable that they're going to have to switch gears but to be crass or, or almost cruel in your coldness. I'm not down with that and I think none of us are.

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Scott Weinberger

17:24

That is not the way you handle family. That is not the way you investigated family members

Homicide

. And I will say his behavior was inexcusable.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

17:32

But here's where I have to commend what

Schenectady

police did overall. They recognized the concern the family had and that the investigator didn't have the bandwidth to handle Wayne's case alone. So, a new person stepped in to help.

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Scott Weinberger

17:44

And there was a very special Lieutenant Detective who later rose the ranks in the police department.

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Eric Clifford

17:50

My name is Eric Clifford and I'm the chief of police in

Schenectady

New York

. I took more of a leadership position on this case. They needed a lot of help.

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Scott Weinberger

18:01

Eric Clifford's path to law enforcement was not a straight line. His older brother was a police officer and prior to Eric joining the department, he was an insurance claims adjuster.

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Eric Clifford

18:11

Well, it's an interesting story. I was actually in line to move up the corporate ladder there in the insurance business when 9-11 happened. And I remember like it was yesterday being out in the field while those towers were falling. Here I am on the road chasing the number for insurance company. I just kind of felt like I wasn't making a difference. So, and it kind of dawned on me, maybe I'll take the police test.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

18:38

And as he rose the ranks in the department, he started to make change one case at a time, especially with cases that weren't even his. Cases like Wayne Jr. shooting.

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Eric Clifford

18:48

In the early stages of the investigation. We had nothing.

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Scott Weinberger

18:53

One of the leading theories was the information from Wayne's mom about a person called Devon who maced Wayne Jr.

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Eric Clifford

19:00

It got communicated to us that Wayne was beefing with these two guys, and one of them used bear mace on him in a bar. They had motive to go after him.

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Scott Weinberger

19:12

As Eric began to look into it. It seemed like a possibility the more information he got, the more connective tissue he uncovered.

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Eric Clifford

19:21

There's two guys, one that lived in

New York City

and one that lived locally and the one that lived locally because his name was being floated around, he started to lose control.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

19:32

And Devin went so far as he was at someone else's house a bit far away in a neighboring town and he is literally screaming in the street.

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Eric Clifford

19:39

"You think I did it? You think I killed him".

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

19:42

And it is the way that all this attention was getting under his skin that they thought it might just be because he was hiding something. Perhaps, involvement.

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Eric Clifford

19:52

This kind of made it both more suspicious of him, and we wanted to interview that person and explore it further.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

19:60

But as they're looking into Devon a bit closer police got another tip. This one came from jail.

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Eric Clifford

20:07

It was a really weird story that tells us he's got information about a sixteen year old by the name of Jake, and say that Jake was with this other guy named Savage and they were walking together with Wayne arguing over weed and money and then Savage pulled a black handgun out. Then Jack stepped in and told Savage to calm down, and then we started running and Jack ended up following and he couldn't keep up and it was just this really long drawn out story.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

20:38

Hearing the story that's coming from this jailhouse informant, it doesn't really sound that legit on its face. You know, it sounds a bit outlandish. But then again why would someone in jail go out of their way to call the police.

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Scott Weinberger

20:49

We've talked about jailhouse informants and they could provide useful information, but sometimes that information comes with conditions like, "What are you gonna do for me?" and all of that has to be taken into consideration.

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Eric Clifford

21:02

What made this theory interesting is that there's some consistency with what actually had happened.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

21:08

But there is one more thing here to point out and that is the timing. It's not like these calls came in right after Wayne Jr. had been murdered. Some time had elapsed where the police really weren't getting anywhere. And so it is possible that whoever committed this crime was now in prison for something else and had made these statements and now this person was just calling to tell the police what they knew or even also to help themselves.

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Eric Clifford

21:31

So, we were working the Devon Chris angle, we had this person that had a whole bunch of information, could have been some young stupid sixteen year old kid that did this.

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Scott Weinberger

21:42

And while police were taking a closer look into that lead you ready for this, another tip comes in.

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Eric Clifford

21:51

He got a call from this girl who is scared out of her mind will only talk to me to get a call like that. Certainly piqued my attention to say, well let's see what we got here. Maybe this is the one that's gonna solve this for us. So, we're going and we meet with this girl and she tells us a story about these two guys, they're brothers and it is the most crazy story that we've ever heard.

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22:18

These brothers one dealt drugs, the person that drove Wayne to the scene, his name was Sean. He owed Bob two hundred fifty dollars for drugs, and Bob was looking for Sean and he was gonna kill him for the money he owed him. And then what really got this girl worried is that right after Wayne died, both boys started freaking out saying we got to clean up our Facebook.

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Scott Weinberger

22:43

The two men she had talked about in the tip were known to scrub their own Facebook pages of pictures of them allegedly holding guns, holding money, putting them in sort of a negative position or a negative light where investigators may have picked up on that and thought wow they're removing evidence off of Facebook which could implicate them potentially in a crime or at least bring police to their door for questioning.

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Eric Clifford

23:09

It has some possibility that, could this be happening?

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

23:13

This very complex theory that she came up with. You know, she's really putting a lot of pieces together, and really almost put on her own armchair detective hat went to Facebook and started doing investigation to these guys that they knew.

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Eric Clifford

23:26

She started correlating it, that you know, it got put out to the media that the assailants had face masks and she's like well they both own face masks.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

23:36

You really need to start to wonder is it that she has this information that's going to pan out or she's just putting some random pieces together that aren't going to lead anywhere, in the end.

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Eric Clifford

23:47

It turns out that these boys had nothing to do with it.

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Scott Weinberger

23:51

So, with so many leads, police are hunting down. Let us sort of walk you through a couple of theories that they're working. The two men from the random girl, the tip that was given police determined that tip was not valuable. The man who called from jail with some information. It really wasn't lining up either. And then there was Devin, the mace guy. He's the most compelling theory to the family but that too turned out not to be involved in the

Murder

of Wayne Best Jr.

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Eric Clifford

24:23

It just so happened that this person, didn't get along with Wayne. They had a lot of interactions, they had a lot of words, but he had nothing to do with the case.

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Karen Kirsch

24:33

They looked into him hard. They really did.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

24:37

Usually when someone is identified very quickly in the beginning, especially by multiple people that it ends up being their guy or there gal? But in the end here, the question becomes where do you go from there?

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Wayne Best Sr.

24:50

You're thinking are they gonna get him, are they gonna get him, are they gonna catch them? Are they going get them?

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Eric Clifford

24:56

As a matter of fact, I recall thinking to myself when this incident occurred, wow this is going to be a hard one to solve.

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Break

Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

25:37

Wayne Jr. was a twenty-five year old young man who had his entire life ahead of him and he was well liked and loved by the community and that community was rocked when he was murdered.

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Wayne Best Sr.

25:49

He was a guy that was just friends with everybody. He really connected our community between white people, black people, hispanic people, he was that kind of guy that would enter a bar. Everybody would say his name and come up and say hi to him.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

26:05

And it also showed in the funeral that they held.

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Karen Kirsch

26:08

It was incredible. The school lit up. Their whole lighted sign shirts were made as were made. I was so completely overwhelmed by the amount of donations that came in to help me pay for his funeral. Like people I didn't even know, it was a huge outpouring in the community.

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Wayne Best Sr.

26:30

There were over seven hundred people at the funeral. The funeral director had never seen anything like it. People were down the block waiting to get in to see Wayne. We actually went through three of these signing books.

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Karen Kirsch

26:46

I mean, there was seventy-five or better of his friends that did a bike ride for him. We do tree lightings for him every year.

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Scott Weinberger

26:55

And while Wayne's popularity certainly was evident in all the outpouring of support, it also brought some complications to the investigation because many who knew him also had their own theory, who may have been responsible.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

27:08

So, many people wanted this case solved that so many tips and so many random facts, if you will, we're just flooding the gates of police headquarters that sometimes too wide a search can make the investigation take so much time.

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Scott Weinberger

27:23

And as we've said before, every tip needs to be investigated.

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Eric Clifford

27:27

I think at one point we had four or five legitimate theories going on that we had to either confirm or negate as a part of this investigation. Somebody comes to us and gives us a theory. We can't just say that's crazy and not look into. We have to look into it and just prove it. Otherwise, it gives defense for the person we do arrest. It gives them the opportunity and say, well, the police knew about this and didn't even investigate it.

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Scott Weinberger

27:55

The lack of movement in this case didn't deter the Best family to continue pushing for answers to make sure that everything that could be done was being done. And equal in the family's commitment and determination to solve this case, was Chief Clifford.

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Karen Kirsch

28:11

I was very impressed. I felt like he wasn't just telling me something just because I wanted to hear it. He never gave me any false hopes. He just let me know that they were working on it.

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Scott Weinberger

28:22

We've talked about this in other cases it's the type of case an investigator would be all in determined to get answers for that family.

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Eric Clifford

28:30

I got the closest with the family of the victim between Karen and John, Wayne's brother and Wayne Sr., his father. I got to know them and the mayor unlike any others. You know, it's something that I'll carry on the rest of my career. I have a better understanding of what it's like to be a crime victim because of the relationship I formed with them.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

28:53

And during the investigation, Eric Clifford found out more about Wayne Jr. that now gave them an additional theory to pursue. And that had to do with

Marijuana

. Wayne Jr. by his own family's account like to smoke as many young people do but that when he had that

Marijuana

or weed that he sometimes would sell it, give it to other people who were looking for it too.

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Eric Clifford

29:16

It was small time carried in his backpack. We're talking about personal use.

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Karen Kirsch

29:22

Did he sell weed? Yes. Did he have his own stash to sell. No.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

29:28

So, we are talking about the transferring of

Marijuana

, they had for money to friends and other people that might be looking for it, but that it's really more recreational back and forth amongst friends. However, you know Scott, we've heard that even when it's between friends and more recreational dealing like this, that it can still end up being something that goes wrong and leads to violence.

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Scott Weinberger

29:50

We have seen homicides over a small amount of

Marijuana

or a small amount of any drug. But what the information does do is give a lead, a theory.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

30:01

A possible motive, whether it was someone wanted that

Marijuana

or money he may have had for it or because of it. And that may have been just the thing that was ultimately a motive for

Murder

.

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Scott Weinberger

30:14

And then yet again, another theory comes in and it has to do with a bar called the Sawmill Inn. It's a place that Wayne did frequent from time to time. It also has quite an interesting history. It's what they call a biker bar and at one time even Hells Angels were seen hanging out there.

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Eric Clifford

30:31

The theory that started to evolve was that Wayne. He almost had like a weekend where he would go to these different bars and people knew that he would have

Marijuana

on him. But Wayne had the ability to connect and make a larger purchase if necessary. And the theory that came to us was that he had hooked up with some bikers from Rensselaer County and purchased

Marijuana.

After he made the purchase, robbed him of that back, killed him. There are many, many different people connected to that, a lot of young people that were Wayne's age.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

31:11

And hearing all this is exactly what I was talking about at the beginning of this podcast. Like as soon as you see things one way now the police are lit in a completely different direction and each one has the potential for being just the thing they're looking to solve this case. But each one of those leads dead ended. So, it's like almost you had too many leads to many possibilities that they just didn't know which way to turn until finally, police would uncover a clue that was going to pay off and actually lead them to their killer.

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Scott Weinberger

31:42

Schenectady

has a lot of cameras, the kind that are street cams that tell you information about traffic and also useful for police in deterring crime. You can go back and listen to one of our episodes from earlier this year, Meri Greco. It also involves the use of this street camera network.

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Eric Clifford

31:59

We went and got camera footage from the College in front of the College. There's a Countywide camera. So, using those two different camera views, we actually saw right after Shawn and Wayne's car drove past a flash of a vehicle that we cued in on reset that looks like the vehicle.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

32:22

This is big. I mean, this is the thing that just might blow the lid off this entire investigation.

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Eric Clifford

32:29

We have a very granular visual of what the vehicle looks like, and I just knew in my gut that this vehicle right here is going to be the key to solving this crime.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

32:42

And now we're going to go back into Chief Clifford's former life before he was a member of law enforcement and that background is going to really factor in.

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Eric Clifford

32:53

Before I was a police officer, I worked as an insurance adjuster. So, I had a really good background in cars. I estimated damage on them. I had been training so I started working the video footage that we had by taking stills and just scanning the internet to see if I could find a car that looked like that one. We were initially fixated on, was it a Nissan Pathfinder? Was it a Chevy product accurate product? A Honda products? So, we just kept going back and forth, back and forth on all these products and it was a lot of work.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

33:30

I love this type of detective work. It's not the DNA evidence or what you're going to find out in a crime lab. It is old school police work sometimes called "gumshoe."

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Eric Clifford

33:42

We are able to get a better view of it and really key in on the fact that it was a Chevy Tahoe.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

33:48

You would never think how would being an insurance adjuster help him in his police work. But it was just that thing in helping to figure out the make and model of this grainy image of this footage that led them to such a big step forward in this investigation.

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Eric Clifford

34:04

Once we confirmed the range of the year, we were able to do something that's called a "lawman search."

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Scott Weinberger

34:11

Investigators searched how many of those vehicles could be in the general vicinity and came up with a similar car which had been recently stopped by police for a traffic ticket.

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Eric Clifford

34:21

One of the vehicles came back to a person by the name of Troy Saunders, and Troy Saunders did not pique our interest for anything.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

34:30

The name Saunders at first didn't raise any eyebrows to investigators, but there's more information in that traffic stop than just the driver.

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Eric Clifford

34:39

We see that there was a traffic stop where a person by the name of Todd Macon was in the car.

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Scott Weinberger

34:44

Todd had known Wayne. In fact they were friends and Todd even attended Wayne's funeral.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

34:50

So, it just makes sense that they're going to zero in on him, and see just maybe is there a link between that guy now and the crime?

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Scott Weinberger

34:59

And here comes even another break.

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Eric Clifford

35:02

One day there's a

Shooting

in

Schenectady

.

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Scott Weinberger

35:05

Todd Maycon's name comes up again.

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Eric Clifford

35:09

And I saw his picture on my board.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

35:12

And this is fantastic police work. But it also has to do with that bit of luck that every detective will tell you that they will look for it and take it every time.

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Eric Clifford

35:22

We realized that the person that did the

Shooting

was a confidential informant for one of our drug guys. So, we called our drug detective down to say, hey we need to go in there and talk to your guy and ask him if he knows anything about the Wayne Best

Homicide

. Sure enough, he had started pointing fingers to Todd Macon and Troy Saunders.

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Scott Weinberger

35:45

Police arrest Saunders, the one they actually believe shot Wayne. Police also arrested Macon who was in the car, and while Saunders was fighting with Wayne, they even uncovered a third person who they believe was involved.

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Eric Clifford

35:59

We triangulated the cellphone towers to the specific location where this crime occurred. Chris Johnson was the other person there who attacked Sean and his phone number was one of them that came up.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

36:12

Now let's talk a little bit about who Troy Saunders was, he was a guy who wasn't from

Schenectady

, he was originally from New York City, he was known to be a member of the Bloods Gang and he actually had a criminal history that included another death. It was alleged that he had killed another man in 2002 and he was actually convicted of manslaughter in that case.

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Scott Weinberger

36:34

Nearly a year and a half after Wayne was killed outside of his home, his family finally got to see the people responsible be arrested.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

36:42

Now let's talk about what actually happened the night that Wayne was killed and we're putting multiple pieces together. But Todd Macon knew Wayne Best and these guys knew that he often had

Marijuana

for his own use and he sometimes had it to give or maybe even sell to other friends. They thought it would be an easy way to get

Marijuana

and money by

Robbing

him.

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37:04

And so they actually started placing calls to Wayne Jr. Where he was and the reason they were looking for him was to track him down to

Rob

him. And as they went from bar to bar waiting from him, they finally hooked up with him, saw him at one of them and then they followed him home.

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Scott Weinberger

37:20

Talk about proving intent here. They were able to determine in this investigation that Macon, Saunders and Johnson were following the victim looking for places to commit this

Robbery

.

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Karen Kirsch

37:34

They actually tried to do something at a local restaurant bar here, but apparently it was just not private enough or whatever, and they decided not to approach Wayne there, and they found out that he was at another bar and they waited outside for him to leave.

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Scott Weinberger

37:52

First place may have been too many people. Second place may have had too much light to be able to be seen and they stalked the victim until they found their opportunity.

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Karen Kirsch

38:02

And they followed him home and ambushed him in front of the house.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

38:07

And when they got there Todd Macon, he was the driver, he stayed in the car as the getaway driver and possibly the lookout and the two other guys, Troy Saunders and Chris Johnson, they had masks, they got out of the car.

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38:19

At least we know that Troy Saunders for sure had a gun. Todd Macon stayed inside that car while these other two went out and confronted both Wayne Jr. and his other friend that they were with and he didn't give up his property that quickly. And when he tried to fight back, Troy shot him, the two of them ran back into the car and Todd Macon drove them away.

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Scott Weinberger

38:42

So, Anna-Sigga, obviously when you have multiple suspects, you know, there's methods that you use in separating them and interrogating and talking to them and trying to get as much information as possible. So, in your estimation, who do you go after first?

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

38:57

It's not going to be the shooter because that's the one you're going to want to make sure is held responsible, and get the biggest penalty in the end assuming that they're all convicted. So, it's going to be the guy inside of the car that Todd Macon and maybe the other guy who was there for this

Robbery

and down for that, but not down for the

Homicide

that ultimately happens, you're going to also go to Christopher Johnson and that's exactly what they did and both those guys gave statements and ultimately pled guilty.

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Scott Weinberger

39:23

Troy Saunders pled not guilty and his case would go to trial.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

39:28

And remember, Wayne Best was shot twice, once, right in the heart and so

Shooting

a firearm at a close range into another person's vital organs. Well, that equals intentional

Murder

.

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Eric Clifford

39:39

You could just tell that Troy it was a bad person. He even made a reference to why he did what he did to Wayne and I think he said I had to put him down. It was just very cold blooded.

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Scott Weinberger

39:51

And you would think that with the three men arrested at the trouble for Karen and the family would be over. But it wasn't things only got worse if that's even possible.

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Karen Kirsch

40:02

I went to bed that night, I knew I was going to court the next day because Todd was trying to get bail. I woke up in the middle of the night and my house was on fire.

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Scott Weinberger

40:12

Somehow, someone set her house on fire.

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Eric Clifford

40:27

The house that she lived in overnight. It was darkness of night, it caught on fire.

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Karen Kirsch

40:34

Twelve thirty at night, one o'clock in the morning, whatever it was, somebody burnt the house down. The fireman got me out.

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Eric Clifford

40:40

We immediately started trying to figure out who the suspects could be.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

40:46

The fire that burned down Karen's house was the night before Todd Macon's bail hearing.

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Scott Weinberger

40:52

Even though a good amount of time had passed since Wayne Best Jr.'s

Murder

. The fact they were having a bail hearing the next day, and this was considered a suspicious fire. Who could have set that fire and why? And was it connected to the hearing the next day?

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Eric Clifford

41:08

Horrible situation for Karen and her son John to have not only lost Wayne in the streets in front of where the houses, but then still have lost their house. It's absolutely horrible.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

41:21

And now here's something else as police were looking into the fire and whether it was connected to Wayne Jr.'s

Murder

, the family was dealt yet another blow this time involving Wayne Jr.'s younger brother Johnny. He and his mom had gone to stay with a friend because remember their home had been burned down as as he walked the family dog next door behind a bingo parlor. A car came into the back.

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Eric Clifford

41:46

It came into the back of the bingo parlor, which he had no business being back there did kind of like a circle and then all of a sudden just gunned it right at him.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

41:55

Johnny only had a second to jump out of that path or he would have been hit.

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Eric Clifford

42:01

It was crystal clear that the driver was trying to hit John, I really don't know that there's a very good camera system behind this bingo parlor.

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Scott Weinberger

42:11

Police were able to identify the driver and it was Devon.

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Wayne Best Sr.

42:15

I questioned Johnny about it. He said daddy, that's the same guy that maced Wayne in the face.

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Scott Weinberger

42:22

The same person who was looked at for Wayne's

Murder

, the same person who maced Wayne months before his death.

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Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi

42:31

So, hearing that now the Devon that had been named all the way from the beginning by Karen is being potentially responsible for her son's

Murder

. Now is responsible as the one who almost tried to run over now, her other son. Does that make him more suspicious in the

Homicide

or maybe in the fire and police concluded again, they had already ruled him out conclusively as to the

Homicide

.